Divalicious Review: A Mother Fights To Live In I’m Still Here
By Caroline Cao | March 12, 2025 | Celebrity & Culture
The Academy Award-nominated Fernanda Torres’ performance as a widow on a crusade is devastating because of its quiet. She is a mother trying to live her life with her children in the wake of their father’s kidnapping.
This is a real story, based on the memoir of Marcela Rubens Paiva. Torres plays Eunice Pavia, the wife of Rubens Paiva, a Brazilian congressman kidnapped and murdered by the Brazilian military. She and an elder daughter are imprisoned and interrogated, and the film shows this matter-of-fact psychological terror.
If you’re a viewer who does not know the facts of the disappearance, the film still captures the everyday terror and ambivalence of a disappeared loved one, a woman trying to find her husband’s whereabouts, leading to an Oscar nomination for its lead actress.
It’s a haunting, disturbing slice of life that truly happened.
Photo credit: Alile Onawale/Sony Pictures Classics
